The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by
ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic
checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven
million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.The
effort is one of the most ambitious security projects this year, with
cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main
arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed.
The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent
cars from evading checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen.
Abdul Karim Khalaf."We're going to build a trench around Baghdad so
we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched
properly," he said in a telephone interview. "The idea is to get the
cars to go through the 28 checkpoints that we set up."

Ten years later and it's time to trot out the same old thing and pretend it's a new idea.

Of the 'new' proposal, AP adds:The interior ministry’s spokesman, police Brigadier General Saad
Maan, told the Associated Press that work began this week on a 100km
(65-mile) stretch of the wall and trench on the northern and
northwestern approaches of the capital.The wall will be three metres (10 feet) high and partially made up of
concrete barriers already in use across much of the capital, he said.
He declined to specify the measurements of the trench.

The barrier will also have a two-metre deep trench running alongside
it, Al-Sumariyah news website reported. Surveillance cameras, explosives
detection devices and towers will also be installed.Many parts
of the capital are surrounded by concrete barriers. Some of these walls
will be taken out of the city's streets and re-installed as part of the
new barrier, Mr al-Shammari said. The
Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, said work began this
week on a 65-mile stretch of the wall and trench around the capital,
the Associated Press reported. The wall will be 10-feet high and
partially made up of concrete barriers, he said."

In the age of Barack, we're all supposed to politely bite our tongues.Barack's also a War Criminal.At his most laughable, Gregory types, "The first step would entail convincing key regional players to pursue
the requisite policies to achieve the designated goal. The Iraqi
government would be an enthusiastic partner but would need to
demonstrate its inclusiveness and ability to unite the country’s diverse
ethnicities and religious sects."I guess that's one way to put it.Not accurate but who needs accuracy when, like Gregory, you're arguing for more war.

In addition to the abuses against non-Sunni minorities in Mosul by
Islamic State, the Sunni residents who make up the city told local
reporters and human rights organizations in 2014 that Iraqi security
forces executed prisoners before withdrawing. Human Rights Watch relayed stories of more than a dozen men executed after being removed from the Counterterrorism and Organized Crime prison.This sense of persecution at the hands of Nuri al-Maliki’s Shia-led government prompted many to support ISIS when it arrived.

Members of Shia militias, who the Iraqi
government has included among its state forces, abducted and killed
scores of Sunni residents in a central Iraq town and demolished Sunni
homes, stores, and mosques following January 11, 2016 bombings claimed
by the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS. None of those
responsible have been brought to justice. Two consecutive bombings at a café in the town of Muqdadiya, in
Diyala province, some 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, on January 11,
killed at least 26 people, many of them Sunnis, according to a teacher
who lives near the café. ISIS claimed
the attacks, saying it had targeted local Shia militias, collectively
known as Popular Mobilization Forces, which are formally under the
command of the prime minister. Members of two of the dominant militias
in Muqdadiya, the Badr Brigades and the League of Righteous forces,
responded by attacking Sunnis as well as their homes and mosques,
killing at least a dozen people and perhaps many more, according to
local residents.

“Again civilians are paying the price for Iraq’s failure to rein in the out-of-control militias,” said Joe Stork,
deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Countries that
support Iraqi security forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces should
insist that Baghdad bring an end to this deadly abuse.”
Can you grasp that?If you can, grasp this: It is illegal for the US government to support a
regime or government that attacks its own people. It is against
domestic US law and it is against international law.Barack's a War Criminal.Maybe because he wants to be, maybe because he's lazy (and would rather
just continue the same instead of transform it into something
different), who knows why he is how he is?But a War Crime is taking place and he is the War Criminal.

Concerned Reader e-mails, "There is no such law. Even if there were,
you are holding President Obama to a higher standard than you would any
other leader. No White House would ever threaten Iraq with losing
funding or support because their government forces were attacking the
people. No one."

American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might
have to curtail aid to the Interior Ministry police because of a United
States law that prohibits the financing of foreign security forces that
commit "gross violations of human rights" and are not brought to
justice.

So I'm expecting too much from Barack when I expect him to follow the law?

And I'm also expecting too much from Barack when I expect him to at
least do the bare minimum on human rights that Bully Boy Bush did?